Double Sewing Desk or Work Stand

Label

Established just twenty minutes from Hanover, the Enfield Shaker Community supported the Upper Valley’s agricultural production and industry throughout much of the nineteenth century. The Shakers established their New Hampshire community along a waterway to take advantage of water-powered saws, mills, and machinery. While a man constructed this sewing desk, two women—one seated on either side—used this desk to sew goods for themselves and their community. Shaker-manufactured hosiery produced by water-powered machines was shipped and sold to the public beginning in the mid-1800s.

The Shakers were a religious sect organized in mid-1750s England that established itself in the United States in the 1770s. Egalitarian, they espoused early arguments for gender and racial equality, pacifism, and lived celibate lives in sequestered rural communities.

From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023

Art History 40.01, American Art and Identity, Mary Coffey, Fall 2023

Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023

Geography 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Emma Colven, Fall 2023

Geography 2.01, Introduction to Human Geography, Coleen Fox, Fall 2023

Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023

English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024

Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024

Exhibition History

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Folk Art at the Hood Museum of Art (a thematic partial permanent gallery installation); Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, July 16, 2015.

An Ever-Widening Circle of Friends, The Enfield Shaker Museum, Enfield, New Hampshire, May 30-October 31, 2006.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 12-June 22, 1997.

Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-May 1, 2002.

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-November 24, 2024.

Shaker Joinery in New Hampshire, Spring Forum, Museum at Lower Shaker Village, Enfield, New Hampshire, April 12, 1997.

The Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1989-1990.

Webster Cottage, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

Publication History

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 229, no. 201.

Provenance

From "Old Shaker Colony" Enfield Shakers, New Hampshire; collected by Frank C. (1850-1912) and Clara G. Churchill (1851-1945), Lebanon, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 1946.

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